455 people charged for alleged $6.5B health care fraud

• The DOJ charged 455 people in connection with alleged health care fraud.
• The operation spanned 56 federal districts and 45 states and included international cooperation.
• Federal agents seized $182 million in assets linked to the alleged fraud.

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that 455 individuals are being charged in relation to more than $6.5 billion in alleged health care fraud.

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Billing the action as the “2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown,” the department’s press release said that those charged include 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals “for their alleged participation in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes involving over $6.5 billion in false claims and significant patient harm, including death.”

On X, in a joint announcement with the Justice Department, FBI Director Kash Patel emphasized that “fraud is no longer being tolerated and it’s not being put up with.”

Patel called the effort international, covering 56 federal districts and 45 U.S. states and territories, with 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units participating.

The takedown effort, per Patel, occurred in the past few weeks.

Besides the charges, the Justice Department reported the takedown included seizure of at least $182 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry and other assets, as well as full-spectrum accountability for all criminal actors from doctor’s offices to corporate boardrooms.”

Medicare and Medicaid programs were both targeted by those wanting to commit fraud, officials said.

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Among the alleged frauds were bogus wound care schemes and hospice fraud that allegedly enrolled people who are not eligible — including one in which a hospice owner allegedly purchased information about recently deceased individuals from a funeral home to then bill Medicare for a few days of hospice services using backdated claims. Federal health programs were allegedly billed for adult day care services that were “not medically needed” or provided. In one instance, an adult day care with a permitted occupancy of 30 people allegedly billed for services provided to hundreds daily.

The list of fraud types is long and varied. For instance, the release said in one instance, “36 defendants, including 28 licensed medical professionals, were charged in connection with the alleged illegal diversion of prescription opioids and other controlled substances that resulted in patient harm.”

Other actions

Federal officials said they also took actions in cooperation with other agencies to tackle alleged fraud and save money. Among them:

• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is suspending 1,079 providers and revoking billing privileges for 1,403.
• Four dozen civil monetary payment settlements totaling more than $73 million and more than 1,400 provider exclusions and 25 actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General netting $10 billion in fraudulent payments that CMS caught and suspended before the money was spent on fraud.
• Civil charges were filed against 13 defendants for $14.8 million in alleged fraud schemes and civil settlements with 31 defendants were initiated, totaling $23 million.
• The Drug Enforcement Administration since Oct. 1, 2025 has gone after revocation of the ability to handle or prescribe controlled substances in 928 administrative cases.

“We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using health care as a front to steal from the American people,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in the written statement. “As today’s cases and arrests show, there is no case too big, no scheme too complex, and no hiding place too remote for our relentless fraud-fighting team. Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison.”

The Justice Department also reported catching and returning to the U.S. from different parts of the world four individuals who are alleged to have between them committed $15.5 billion in health care fraud schemes.

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